Edit: I don’t usually do this, I have a rule that once it’s up here it stays up here for all to see. However, I don’t usually post in the grips of such a black mood. It would seem that the nature of my depression matures as I do and I’m not always able to cope with the new iterations as they come up. I have edited this entry for clarity.
1. I intended to have a career. I do not have a career.
The idea was that I’d work and eventually be able to stop work to get published. This has not in fact happened, mainly the problem has been actually getting a job for any long-term period, unfortunately applying for jobs takes up valuable writing time and I feel too guilty to actually write anything whilst not contributing to the household income as I proved last year when I was supposed to be taking some time to concentrate on getting published. Actually what I spent my time doing was worrying about how I wasn’t actually giving any money to The Jellicle and trying to cheer myself up by destroying everything I’d written previously.
2. Success? Adulthood? Maybe even the respect of others?
By this point in my life I thought I’d be doing something worthwhile with some sot of contribution to make to the rest of the world. Unfortunately because I don’t have a job much of the rest of the world thinks I’m a bit of a loser and thus I find I’m automatically…sorry I’m a bit ahead of myself there, currently I do have a job. However, I am failing at the basic part of it which requires accuracy and efficiency (the two things I usually get praised for), this week my job have given me all the things I requested at the beginning – a workstation assessment, access to various databases, etc.etc. and I still haven’t been able to pull my weight.
Now my instinct after years of temping is to assume that they’ve given me these things so that they can quickly and efficiently get rid of me, call me paranoid if you like, I’m well aware this sounds it, but I’m also used to being told my time is up when I’ve had weeks of being told I can do my job effectively and well – I have no idea what happens when you’re being told you’re a bit rubbish but I can’t imagine it’s much different.
The notion that they aren’t going to end my contract early is one I find difficult to entertain. In any case it’s going to end in April and I’m likely to lack the good recent reference I was hoping for. Which should give me more impetus to send off manuscripts (I’ve actually been asked to submit one for the first time ever).
What I find difficult to deal with is being assumed to be incompetent, I can be a hugely competent person in some areas but, because I’ve not held a job down for more than two years at a time, there are a large amount of people – usually older admittedly, who automatically assume I’m not. I find this incredibly frustrating as it has previously seemed to me that assumptions of competence come with age.
There really is a lack of understanding of the current economic reality by a great many people, some of whom should know better, and I feel as if I’m being judged unfairly as a result. If it were only a one off I could shrug it off, but it’s constant presence is dragging me down.
3. The Hopeless Cynicism
I keep trying, but underneath it all I know that there is nothing I can do about any of this. Whenever I have the least amount of belief that I can actually effect anything in my life it is taken away because in reality there is nothing I can do to effect any of it.
There, in a nutshell, is my Melancholia. I hate how negative I seem to have become and how much I refuse to believe in anything I try going right. What started out as my coping strategy for the swamp has become incorporated into it.
It doesn’t help that I do not believe that happiness in and of itself is a worthwhile goal and those closest to me see this as a problem. I continue to believe and continue to live as if happiness is a welcome side-product of working towards achieving my goals, I think that this is a perfectly valid way to live and will continue to do so despite the nefarious insidiousness of The Swamp.